부산대학교 도서관

The present study aims to investigate primary and secondary levels of Urdu lexical stress in multisyllabic Urdu words. Previous researches (Hussain, 1997, 2005) on Urdu lexical stress reveal that Urdu has single stress per word. Hussain's (2005) work records some evidence, for secondary stress in multisyllabic words of Urdu. The present study utilizes vowel duration cue for lexical stress detection to furnish preliminary foundation of primary and secondary stress in Urdu multi-syllabic words. For this purpose, one extreme position, low-hack vowel /a:/ has been selected. This vowel has been embedded in different bisyllabic and trisyllabic Urdu words. The recordings have been collected from 7 Urdu speakers and three contexts have been focused; primary stress, secondary stress and no stress. The speech has been recorded using PRAAT software on mono-channel in an anechoic room. The results show that trisyllabic words of Urdu have multiple stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]